All the Good Monsters
by Faye Dartmouth
Summary: Sam always believed everything Dean said. Tag to WTLB.


Title: All the Good Monsters

Summary: Sam always believed everything Dean said. Tag to WTLB.

A/N: So. Yeah. Here's the thing. My name is Faye, and, well, I'm a Sam girl. But here's the other thing, I'm not looking for some kind of twelve step program here, because, well I _like _it. I'm not going to apologize for how I think and feel. That said, when I can separate myself from fandom, I really liked this ep. When I'm weighed down in it, this ep gives me a headache. This fic is an expression of both as it attempts to get into Sam's head. I think Sam has a lot to face about what he's done, but I don't think he's evil, and my heart still broke for him at the end of this ep. So this is for anyone else who still sees Sammy, no matter how bleak it looks.

A/N 2: Tyranusfan gave this a read and provided a lovely beta in near-record time.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

-o-

_All the good monsters open their eyes,_

_To see the wasteland where the home fires rise,_

_And the people shouting why, why, why..._

_Do you know what you are?_

_Do you know what you are?_

-from Good Monsters by Jars of Clay

-o-

For a second, Sam believes Dean.

It's always been that way, even when Sam wanted to deny it. He's believed Dean for as long as he can remember--believed every word Dean said, trusted Dean to tell him the truth, wanted Dean to understand where he was coming from. Sam's life has been one of lies and hurt, but Dean never lied when he could help it, and that matters to Sam, even now. His brother has always been everything Sam wanted to be--cool and calm and confident and capable and _right_.

Sam believed Dean when he told Sam that eating Spaghettios was the only surefire way to make him smarter. Sam believed Dean when he told Sam that hunting evil made them superheroes. Sam believed Dean when he told Sam that hunting and normal just didn't mix. Sam believed Dean when he told Sam that he just didn't want to do this alone. Sam believed Dean when he told Sam that all Dad had ever wanted was to keep them safe.

Sam even believed Dean when he told Sam that he was going darkside. Sam believed Dean when his brother told him that he was just like Dad.

Sam always believed everything Dean said. Even when he hated it. Even when he resented it. Even when he wanted to scream in his face, _no, no, no, NO_. He believed Dean even when it broke his heart, even when he chose to defy it anyway, because Dean was all there ever had been, Dean is all there is now. Dean's always been the only one who put him first, the only one who _mattered_.

It was why he put Dean first that night when Dean showed up at Stanford, why he'd left Jess alone and vulnerable, because Dean needed him. It was why he hadn't killed the Demon when he'd had his shot, because Dean had asked him not to. It was why he could never really be mad at Dean over the deal, because Dean had done it all out of love, all out of his broken need to make things right.

And Sam believes Dean now, believes that Dean is scared for him, scared of what he's doing. He believes that his brother is right about Ruby, that he is right about Sam needing to stop. Sam believes it all, because it's everything he knows is true, but he knows that doesn't matter--nothing matters, Sam doesn't matter. Sam's soul is worth this sacrifice. Sam's soul is worth keeping Dean from having to take this burden again. Sam believes Dean in all of that and more, but Sam can't stop now, not when he has to finish this, once and for all, and he wishes Dean understood.

He's trying to put Dean first, trying to save the world so Dean won't have to. And he wants Dean to believe in him, even when Sam's sure he doesn't deserve it, but that's what Sam wants, more than Ruby's blood, more than killing Lilith, more than saving the world--he just wants Dean to _believe in him_. Just once.

Because if Dean can believe in him, then maybe it's not all for nothing, maybe it's not all so lost. Because if Dean can believe in Sam and Sam believes everything Dean says, then maybe for once Sam can believe in himself and not wonder if he's right.

So when Dean tells Sam he's a monster, it's not what he hoped to hear, but Sam believes it out of reflex.

It's not news. Sam's known it all along. Even when he didn't know _why_, Sam had felt it. He had thought it was hunting that made him miserable, thought it was the lifestyle that made him feel less. Wrong. Different. _Unsafe_. That's why he'd run, to get away from hunting, but all he was doing was running from the one thing he could never leave behind: who he was.

So if Dean sees a monster, finally, now, after all these years, then maybe there has been one there all along.

And in that second, in that horrible moment when the truth is laid out between them and Dean doesn't even look _sorry_, all Sam sees is rage. Rage at Alistair for breaking his older brother. Rage at his fourteen year old self for his blind naiveté. Rage at his mother for doing this to him. Rage at Dean for _lying_ all those years when Sam had always believed him. If Sam had known back then, if Dean had just been honest from the get go, if Dean had just treated Sam like the monster that he was, that maybe this wouldn't be so hard.

Sam doesn't even feel the punch as he throws it and he relishes the feel of knuckles on his face. This is a fight Sam knows he'll win because it's not a fight at all. Monsters always win. Monsters took their mother, took their father, took Jessica, took Dean--monsters _took everything_, so the odds are stacked in Sam's favor.

He's tried hard, fought against this so long, that this rush is almost as sweet as Ruby's blood. For a moment, it feels good to have this all out in the open, to not lie, to know just where he stands in the big picture. To know that he was never Sammy Winchester at all, but the Boy King, and that the last 26 years have been the lie that he's finally correcting, the lie that Dean's finally not telling him anymore. That he's just a monster, worthy of his brother's hate, worthy of the angels' ire, worthy of the demons' praise. It's the only time Sam's ever felt truly honest, completely _real_, and it scares him more than the need for another fix of blood.

Dean has held him back, and Sam wishes he knew why Dean had bothered at all when he'd believed this all along. Because Dean had. There was a reason Dean had hid Dad's big dying secret. Not because Dean promised his father, because Dean could disobey when he needed to, always could, but because Dean thought it was _true_.

And that explained everything. Why Sam was kept on the need to know basis, why Sam could never be trusted with anything important. It explained why Dean hadn't trusted him to save himself, why Dean hadn't trusted Sam to save him. Why Sam always had to be protected. Why Sam was a burden and not a brother.

Dean's on the ground and Sam has never known Dean to be wrong about _anything_, so the monster in Sam wraps its fingers around Dean's throat and squeezes, squeezes harder and wishes that Dean had left Sam for dead in Cold Oak, that his brother had left him in the house the night the Demon came for him when he was six months old. Dean saved an abomination. Dean sold his soul for nothing more than a _monster_.

And, just like that, Sam sees his brother, struggling for air. The one who died for him. The one who is dying because of him now. And something breaks in Sam, so completely, that it almost rips him in half.

Monster.

And Sam stops. He doesn't want this. He doesn't want any of it. He doesn't want to listen to angels or demons and he doesn't want Ruby's blood. He doesn't want to have to make it end this way.

But there's a fact Sam must face. Dean's right; Sam can't change what he is.

But he can change _this_.

"You don't know me," Sam says, because if Dean only saw a monster, then Dean couldn't know him. He couldn't know how much this hurt, how much Sam wanted out. "And you never have."

Because Dean thinks Sam rebels blindly, that he cuts off his nose to spite his face. Dean thinks Sam's giving in just for his own benefit, for some kind of personal gain.

But there is no benefit to this. Not for Sam anyway. And he wishes Dean could see that Sam just wants to use this monster in him for one last thing before everything is over. For good.

"You walk out that door," Dean says, and there's resentment and weariness in his voice that Sam can practically feel, "don't you _ever_ come back."

The ultimatum is not unexpected, but it hurts the same. The last time he walked out the door in denial of who he was. This time, Sam walks out to fulfill it.

It didn't make him happy then.

It won't make him happy now.

Last time, it cost Jessica her life.

This time, it will spare Dean his.

When Sam shuts the door behind him, it feels like something's ending, something important, something he'll never get back, and it makes going to Ruby so much easier when he is just a monster. After all, no one misses a monster, so Sam believes his brother one last time, and walks away.


End file.
